“What did Lyons do?”
She went a little bug-eyed and then shook her head. “It’s... I don’t want to gossip or talk about anyone. There was a thing, and I got upset, and then I sorta took it out on you and you didn’t deserve that. Even if you did earn a little of my ire by not caring whether the kids were disappointed. Nothing that meant rudeness and I know I was rude.”
“You weren’t that rude,” he said, then stopped when the RN he’d begged supplies from came back with the saline, a basin for him to wash her knee over and a gown to cover his clothes. He stood, she helped him carefully into it and then helped Angel shift back on the bed so she could lie with her knee over the basin.
The stuff about the kids he’d leave alone. He cared whether the kids were disappointed, but he had placed it lower in the priorities than his desire to not continue this thing. It wasn’t a black-or-white issue, it just became a gray he could live with. At least before. Maybe not now. There would already be children to reassure that Dr. Angel was all right. Especially Jenna. And he’d have to do that because he was going to write her off work tomorrow, make her rest the knee for the weekend, whether she wanted to or not. Call it his good deed, even if she was unhappy about it.
When they were alone again, before he unwrapped her leg or doused it with saline, he leaned over to make sure and look her in the eye. “Are you off this weekend?”
“Yes. I work tomorrow, then I’m off Saturday and Sunday.”
“You’re off tomorrow,” he corrected, and before she could protest said, “You’ll thank me in the morning when it’s burning like a knife wound and you don’t want to do anything but sit and read that paperback in your lumpy satchel.”
Her mouth screwed to the side and he nodded when she didn’t argue. “You don’t have to tell me what happened with Lyons, and what I’m going to say isn’t an excuse for any bad behavior, but do you know what happened at his last hospital?”
He could see her working through any gossip she might have heard.
“I know there was something bad at his last hospital, but I don’t really have the kind of relationships that make me someone people want to tell stuff to.”
That was something else he wanted to ask about but knew better for the moment. It wasn’t his business, and it was probably personal. People were probably paying extra close attention to her now, to both of them, because she didn’t hang out with anyone and he was known to...enjoy hanging out with a lot of different women. Just not any from work. Ever. Which was why he still struggled to keep reminding himself that she was not someone he should become used to hanging out with or indulge the fond feelings that had wormed into his chest tonight at the rink.
But Lyons? He could at least give her some insight into his brother’s unfortunate situation, even if it wouldn’t inspire her to tell him what had happened.
“Last Christmas, he worked at a hospital north of the city, and one of his coworkers, someone who was having domestic problems, took up his offer to help her get away from her husband. She came to the hospital on Christmas Eve, and when they were speaking, her husband came and shot them both. She didn’t survive. Lyons barely did. When he recovered enough to return to work, I talked him into coming here instead. He’s a great medical mind, always has been, but his people skills have deteriorated.”
She leaned up on her elbows, her brows pinched so hard the line that formed between them could’ve passed for the Grand Canyon on a topographical map. “That’s awful. No one told me that. Does he speak with someone?”
Therapy. Something Wolfe had tried a few times to get going but failed. “He went to the few sessions the hospital required to clear him, but no.”
“Does he talk about it with you?” she asked, and that was when Wolfe knew he needed to stop this conversation.
He reached for the saline and opened it up. “No. We’re not a close family.”
It was the only answer he had to give. They’d never been close, but still, they were brothers. Wolfe had come to New York at Lyons’s request and as a way to get out from under their parents. It sounded like a small thing, but Wolfe had known it for what it was: a protective, brotherly instinct. One Lyons barely let him return even when he’d been critically wounded and needed protecting.
“Oh.” The small sound made him look at her face again, needing for some reason to see if that was a sound that meant judgment or something else.
Regret. That was what he saw in her deep, understanding eyes. She knew what it was like to not have that family closeness. Which explained why she wasn’t moving to Atlanta to be close to family. Didn’t explain why she didn’t have any friends here, but he really couldn’t ask that—he already had a literal wound to deal with, and no clue on emotional wound treatment.
“Ready?” he asked instead.
She nodded, and then sat up better so she could watch him. She had to watch, she’d said. Whatever else she’d claimed about knowing he was a good doctor, she didn’t trust easily.
Watching was her only defense.
And distance was his. Three days without seeing her should help him too.
* * *
The next morning came and went, Wolfe’s morning surgeries were blessedly without complications. Now to change, make rounds, visit with Jenna and family to reassure them about Angel’s knee, and go home.
Today was supposed to be distancing and mellowing to this struggle of attraction Angel had triggered in him, but the way his thoughts kept returning to her revealed the flaw in his plan.
Because of her knee, they were in the clear through the weekend for anything new to broadcast, but the relief he’d expected failed to materialize.
He’d just shed his scrub top when he heard the door open and tilted his head to see who’d come in.
A petite blonde with a sleek ponytail met his gaze and he saw the usual spark of interest there that he always saw.
Reynolds.
God, not today.
The easy mood he liked to ride at work had already been corrupted by his own inability to control his thoughts. He shouldn’t be concerned how Angel was doing. He shouldn’t keep wondering if she had someone there at her apartment helping her out, or if she had to hobble through alone. They needed this time apart for him to cool down.
He had no patience left for Reynolds today.
* * *
Angel returned to work after three days restlessly resting her knee in her quiet apartment.
It was a nice apartment, she supposed. But small. A party of one didn’t need that much room, but when her playground had been mountains, the progressively smaller living spaces that led to New York real estate made being inside feel claustrophobic if she was forced to spend too much time indoors.
The biggest feature of her decor was her bookshelves. She liked to read, but the truth was she felt that loneliness that had been the main catalyst for her decision to leave New York even more acutely.
The two evenings she’d spent out with Wolfe, even begrudgingly, even though the second had ended with stitches, had been the best times she’d had since arriving in New York. Since longer, if she was being honest. It tempted her. He’d been so kind; would he believe her if she told him the unlikely truth? If she had someone to stand by her, a friend to back her up if it all caught up with her and the hospital decided she wasn’t worth the hassle, that would be enough to take the risk.
No sooner had the thought occurred than the sinking feeling came in her middle. Would she ever truly learn that lesson? So stupid.
Probably a side-effect of all this alone time her knee forced on her. Extra-long weekends? Not good for her. Despite her knee alternating between aching and burning, she’d rather be at the hospital. Which was how she wound up rising extra early to visit Jenna on Monday before her own day began.
When she arrived, the first thing she saw was a sign on Jenna’s door denoting
infection, along with boxes of paper gowns and gloves, and a posting about the isolation protocol.
Dread sinking in her middle, she shook out a gown, donned it and the gloves, then slipped into the quiet room.
She knew by the protocol what it was: a hospital-acquired infection. Not something to do with the surgery, just another thing for Jenna’s already beleaguered little body to fight off.
The one bright spot was the lack of masks in the supplies, which told her it wasn’t airborne. It was spread by touch.
The lights were mostly off, but the one above Jenna’s bed lit the ceiling well enough for her to see Mrs. Lindsey in the chair beside Jenna’s bed, and when she focused on Jenna, even in the low light she could see her pallor rivaled the bedsheets.
“Dr. Angel,” she greeted, voice small, but smile still there. Unlike the day Angel had found her sulking and refusing to eat, today she could tell Jenna wanted to show her usual cheer, but she just couldn’t quite get there. “How’s your knee?”
“Healing very well. Dr. Wolfe took good care of me,” Angel said, letting her eyes take in the rest of the room, which only increased the heaviness in her chest. The decorations that had been put up days before were gone. No tree. No stuffed bears in Christmas sweaters. All that remained were the twinkle lights around the television, currently not twinkling.
One questioning look at Mrs. Lindsey got the diagnosis. “C. Dif.”
Damn.
“Did they start her on IV antibiotics?” Angel asked as she headed to see what was currently hanging on Jenna’s IV pole. Just saline.
“They bring it twice a day. Started yesterday morning,” Mrs. Lindsey informed her, and Angel had to work to keep the sigh welling inside her from bursting forth.
“What am I gonna do with you, kid?” she asked Jenna, taking the risk and pulling one of her gloves off so she could take Jenna’s hand without a vinyl barrier.
“Wheelchair race,” Jenna suggested, “with Dr. Wolfe. For the next video stream.”
Not about her, not exactly. She squeezed the little hand and went along with the subject. “How is that related to Christmas?”
“I don’t know, you could sing ‘Jingle Bells’ or something.”
She couldn’t help but grin. Even weak and exhausted, Jenna was still all-in on the Christmas streams. “I think wheelchair races might be a little insensitive to our patients who have to get around in a wheelchair, honey. I wouldn’t want to make them feel bad.”
“But you can’t run around now. Dr. Wolfe said you have to let your knee heal without strain and activity.”
Apparently, Wolfe had come to give them the same speech he’d given her. And in Jenna’s mind, Angel could have a wheelchair race if she needed a wheelchair to help her. Made sense. Sort of. But it still wasn’t going to happen. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“When’s the next one?”
“I don’t know yet. I just got back from my forced rest, and I came to see you before anyone else.”
“But you’re going to do another one, right?” Jenna asked, apparently needing to hear it.
Angel hadn’t spoken to Wolfe about that either. Hadn’t spoken to him at all since he’d so dutifully and gallantly tended her after the fall and driven her home afterward. She’d refused to let him inside her tiny, book-crammed apartment, but he’d got her there in one piece.
As if summoned by her thinking of him, a knock came at the door and Wolfe breezed in. “Morning, ladies.”
He made eye contact with Angel a moment too long, and then looked pointedly at her bare hand.
Yes, she was breaking protocol.
“I’m getting the stink-eye from Dr. Wolfe for breaking protocol, honey. You tell him what you want to do next. No wheelchairs.”
With a final squeeze, she went over to the sink, peeled off the other glove and chucked both before giving her hands a vigorous wash and donning a new pair of gloves. As isolation required. Funny that soap and water was better at containing such an infection than alcohol.
When she returned to the bed, Wolfe was holding the hand she’d abandoned, his own hand out of the glove now. Angel moved to the side and hung out, listening shamelessly to Wolfe’s talk about the virus.
“I know you don’t want to eat,” he was saying, “and even though you have a very valid reason for that, you still need to get nutrients into you. Your body needs fuel to heal.”
“Even water makes me have to go potty. It’s awful.”
Poor kid. It was a virulent, terrible infection.
“He’s right, honey.” They went through a long discussion about what to do to help get through, and just when Angel thought they were managing, Jenna changed the subject.
“Dr. Angel is under the mistletoe.”
One simple statement, and both their heads jerked back to spy the little sliding hook upon which the mistletoe had been hung. The mistletoe Angel had forgotten about and which also hadn’t been removed during the sterilization.
Wolfe looked at Angel, and then back at Jenna. “Tell me this isn’t another barter, darlin’.”
Her heart stopped. Just stopped. When she opened her mouth to casually mention her sudden heart failure, it slammed back into full throttle and the sound that escaped her open mouth more closely resembled a gasp than a word.
An unfortunately timed gasp.
All eyes swiveled to her, heat flashing on her cheeks as she forced her mouth closed.
“No. I don’t want to eat.” Jenna saved her by speaking. She shook her head with as much energy as Angel had seen from her. “But the mistletoe rule says you kiss the girl under the mistletoe. They took out the rest of my decorations because they might be infected and couldn’t be cleaned good enough. Mom had to throw the tree and things away because they said the only way to kill it is bleach, and if you bleach a Christmas tree, it’ll be ruined.”
It went on. Jenna was upset about her initial illness, as anyone would be, and it just kept compounding. First, she couldn’t go to their traditional family outing, then all her Christmas decorations—her white Christmas tree with pink and rose gold ornaments—were taken away. She wanted her way about something, and Wolfe was arguing because...she was so objectionable to kiss? Or maybe because she’d gasped, and he’d mistaken her reaction for horror?
By the time they got to another round of him saying no, Angel had had enough. She tapped his shoulder twice, and, when he looked at her, grabbed his cheeks and popped a quick, chaste kiss on his lips.
That was what she’d intended, at least.
Kiss. Back off. Give the kid something she wanted for once. Prove she wasn’t an unkissable leper. And then be done with it. Nothing to see, move along.
Instead, the instant her lips touched his, what she could only call a jolt speared her lips and began spreading out over her face, down her neck, over her chest with her second possible cardiac arrest of the morning.
Jenna laughed. “You’re supposed to kiss his cheek!”
His cheek? There went her third heart attack in the past minute.
“Oh.” God, she was a mess. And she needed to get the heck out of there. “Uh, I’ll remember for next time. But my shift’ll be startin’.”
In a while, hopefully long enough for the red-hot nature of her cheeks to diminish to where it was only powerful enough to heat a city block, not the whole danged city.
She washed up and made it to the hallway in record time, her mouth still buzzing from the kiss. It wasn’t static. Not actually a shock. It wasn’t as if she’d dragged her feet all through the hospital and built a charge that only found a ground when her lips touched his, but whatever it was left her sparking all over, and overly aware of her own mouth as she’d never been aware of her mouth.
She’d gotten about ten heart-racing paces down the hallway into another dimension when Wolfe caught up with her.
; With a steel grip, he captured her elbow and dragged her into the sunken alcove that housed a phone held over from the old paging system, turning her as she moved until she was sandwiched between him and the wall.
Should she say something? But how could she say anything when she’d just forgotten how to think thoughts?
He stood so close, the heat from him canceled out the cold wall at her back, leaving her with nothing but visceral reactions. The effect of prolonged loneliness, and overly familiar contact with the object of her secret crush. It was a mess, and she was a mess to have taken it to that level.
But he wasn’t speaking either. She lifted her gaze from the rapid pulse throbbing at the hollow of his throat to those gorgeous blue eyes.
She opened her mouth to apologize, but what she saw in his eyes stopped her cold.
He wasn’t angry. He was...interested? He’d felt something, maybe not that obsessive, will-sapping full-body sparkles, but something.
As he leaned in the strong grip on her arm softened, released and slipped to her waist to grip in a kind of rolling caress.
His breath feathered her cheeks, and her own came faster in response. The last remnants of her spontaneous kiss roared back to a buzz that drowned out everything else.
He was going to kiss her. Not a quick kiss to placate a patient. A real kiss. The kind of kiss that she’d been imagining from him for the past eleven months.
He licked his lips. She licked hers. And his gaze held, pupils so dilated the icy blue was almost gone. It was down to that nearly indigo band around the outside, and the black pupils that held promises she couldn’t even begin to name.
The tip of his nose brushed her cheek and her eyes drifted shut as her body instinctively strained forward and up, closer, closer...
“You two, wait until you’re after hours.” A woman’s voice broke through the haze, snapping her away from him.
Wolfe jerked back and let go of her, and she realized then that her legs had gone stupid. She had to grab the phone shelf to keep from sagging to the floor like some boneless bag of clichéd idiocy.
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